Love Story for a Snow Princess (Siren Publishing Classic) (11 page)

Was that why he couldn’t stop himself from hurting himself? Because he hadn’t yet confronted, face-to-face, what had happened to him?

“If you’d rather not—” Caleb murmured.

“Of course I’ll go!” she interrupted quickly. “I’d love to attend with you.”

By Friday, most of the snow had melted, which was nice considering most of the women wanted to wear dresses and nice shoes to the dance, Thea included. She dug deep into the bottom of her suitcase and found the pale-blue, chiffon dress she had packed for her wedding day. How ironic to be wearing it for Caleb but not for the intended purpose. She hung it in the bathroom so the shower steam would iron out the slight wrinkles. The dress was totally impractical, but Thea didn’t care. She’d be leaving possibly by the middle of next week, and she wanted to have a night to remember.

Again, Paden snuck into her thoughts. She hadn’t seen him since Saturday, since the night they’d had sex. The shock and anger had faded into a dull ache, and she found herself almost sad now whenever she thought of that night. It had started out so beautiful.

Caleb picked her up in a big truck, for which she was thankful since she didn’t fancy wearing a dress on the back of a snowmobile. About the size of a high school gymnasium, the Municipal Auditorium boasted fold-up bleachers and basketball hoops at each end. But everything had been pulled back to allow for a dance floor, round tables with chairs, and a concession stand. The lights were low, and candles on the tables provided a romantic glow. A DJ sat in a booth in the corner, looking through a box of compact discs while the sound track to the film
Titanic
played through the speakers. Though Thea didn’t consider herself a party girl at all, the difference between this and a nightclub in LA was all too glaringly obvious.

Yet, there was something charming about the hanging disco ball with twirling reflective lights scattering around. The men were groomed with their hair slicked back, and she counted more bowties in the room than probably existed in all of LA. Some of the women wore nice dresses, but many wore everyday casual pants and shirts complete with flats. Only a few had on high heels, Thea included. And the fact that she wore a pair of Christian Louboutins wasn’t lost on the female population. Though they were last season’s collection, the crepe satin and blush lace Fortitia sandals were a pair she’d splurged on right before coming to Alaska. She had wanted something special for her wedding, and the red-soled shoes were something she had always wanted but didn’t have the heart to spend too extravagantly on.

Until she had decided to get married.

Now, she was just glad she’d gotten a chance to wear them before flying back to California.

When the
Titanic
sound track finished, the DJ switched to
Braveheart
. She wondered if it was some inside joke that the only music for such a festive occasion came from sad-ending movies.

People greeted Thea and Caleb as they moved through the auditorium. There were several men Thea was surprised to see dressed up, including Toothless Jim. Caleb placed his coat on a chair at one table, and Thea did the same, not worrying the least as she laid down her handbag on the tabletop. Caleb took her hand and led her to the dance floor, gathering her close to his body as he enfolded her into his warmth.

She leaned on him, and eventually the gradual movement of their swaying bodies had her eyes closing. If only it had been Caleb’s touch that had sparkled on her nerves, bringing her to life. Things would have been a lot easier. But immediately she thought of Paden, saw him in her mind’s eye, and remembered his hard body pressed against hers. She’d had several days away from him, and she had wanted to hate him, to fear him. But the more she didn’t want to think of him, the more her mind kept straying back. The sound of his voice, the fear in his eyes, the shame on his face, all tore at her heart.

The question she couldn’t seem to answer, however, was why. She didn’t think it was love, at least not the fairy-tale, happily-ever-after-type of love, the one that banished the bad guys and made everything seem like roses. Thea didn’t know if that type of love really existed in the real world where everything was so complicated. It was hard to live just as it was hard to keep on living in sadness.

She inhaled sharply, opened her eyes, and immediately locked gazes with Paden. He had dressed for the dance, his hair slicked back, hanging a little long over his collar. He wore a suit with no tie, keeping his dress smart and casual at the same time. He outshone every man there, and he made her heart thump with excitement. She stopped dancing, forcing Caleb to look down at her. She could feel his confusion as he glanced from her to Paden and back again.

“Excuse me, Caleb,” she murmured, breaking eye contact with Paden to look up at her date. “Do you mind if we sit down for a bit?”

“Of course not,” he said and walked her to the table. “Would you like a drink?”

“Um, yes,” she answered. “Water, please.”

He left her alone at the table, and just as she thought, Paden immediately came over to her.

“Thea.”

She looked up at him. His tone had been low, bleak, much like the darkness in his eyes. She didn’t want to see him, to look upon him, but her heart wasn’t about to let her go so easily.

“Paden,” she whispered.

“I’d like to talk to you,” he said.

She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a wise—”

“Please, Thea,” he interrupted. The word was thick in his throat. “I would never hurt you.”

Against her own better judgment, she found herself nodding. “Where?”

“We don’t have to leave the dance,” he assured her. “There are a few offices in the back where we can have a few minutes of privacy.”

She rose just as Caleb returned to the table.

“Hey, Paden,” Caleb said, holding out his hand.

Paden shook it. “If you don’t mind, there’s something I need to discuss with Thea. I’ll have her back as soon as possible.”

Caleb frowned. “Can’t it wait?”

“I promise it’ll just be a few minutes.”

Caleb looked at Thea. “Well, it’s up to her, of course.”

Thea touched Caleb’s arm. “I’ll be right back.”

As he nodded, Paden pointed the way out a side door and followed after her, taking her hand as they exited the auditorium into a dark hallway. He led her to a door and opened it, leading her in. She waited in darkness until he turned on the desk lamp.

He didn’t turn fully around right away, only ran a hand over the back of his neck. “Thank you, I know it can’t have been easy to trust me.”

“Cutters don’t hurt others, though, do they?”

Startled, he turned to look at her. “How did—”

“It wasn’t hard to figure out,” she answered quickly, interrupting him.

He sighed. “Doctors diagnosed me as having a borderline personality disorder with self-harming tendencies when I was sixteen. It’s listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.”

He looked down and shuffled his feet. She could see he was struggling with something. Embarrassment perhaps?

“Why do you cut yourself?”

He shrugged but said nothing. There was something utterly bleak in his stark profile. Something was hurting him, something he was too proud to admit. And then it all clicked into place and her heart wept for him.

“It was him, wasn’t it?” she said softly. His body jerked in response, and his mouth compressed into a thin line. “The man who took you, he did something to you. Did he…did he hurt you?’

“He never raped me, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he finally said. “That’s not how he…” He fell silent.

“How he…?”

“Got his pleasure,” he finished in a low, rough voice. “I don’t really want to talk about this.” He tried to turn away from her.

She grabbed his shoulders and yanked him back. “You may not want to talk about it, but I need to understand. Please, Paden.”

“Every night,” he finally started, “for ten months I slept handcuffed to a support beam in his room.” He stopped talking for a minute, thought about something, and then started again. “He liked using whips, had different kinds for different…procedures…but he never drew blood. He said he didn’t want any scars on my body.”

Her hand drifted over the healed lacerations on his arm. He grabbed it and brought it to rest upon his chest.

“Those I did to myself,” he told her, very simply. “He didn’t like scars, so I made sure that I gave myself plenty.”

She saw the blood again, the knife coming down and slicing through his skin. The pain wasn’t a pleasant thought. It was a horrible, nauseating picture.

She could see he strained against telling her more. His confession went against everything he was, every strong piece of fiber that ran through his body. And yet, for her, he was willing to bare his tortured soul.

“I started cutting myself when I first started getting aroused by girls,” he continued, clearing his throat. “I was fifteen when I went on my first date with a girl. I don’t remember her name now, but I remember we were kissing, that awkward stage where braces got in the way and acne was developing. I got hard, and that’s when I first heard it.”

“Heard what?”

“The monster inside, telling me to cut it out, all I had to do was slice the skin open.”

Thea shivered at the monotone admission.

“I thought I was possessed. That God had abandoned me. This monster talked to me every time I got a hard-on. It got so bad I finally told my parents who took me to every shrink and doctor in the world who treated this condition. For years I was in and out of institutions, on medications, trying every new magical potion that popped up. Finally, when I turned twenty-five I was done with it. I had read a new approach to self-harming that described a life devoid of the trigger which turned on the monster.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s why I moved to Alaska. Why I turned my back on my parents, my life, everything! I had my house built and started my own comic book so I could live and be autonomous.”

“Did it work?”

He nodded. “Yes! For ten years I had silence. I got rid of my bandages. I bought a knife set. And every time I had a thought about sex I would distract myself with writing, or hiking, or any other outdoor activity. I learned to not be aroused.” He looked at her with eyes bloodshot red. “Until I saw you. Until I saw the pain in your eyes. And the monster roared to life.”

“Then it’s my fault.”

He shook his head. “Of course it isn’t, Thea. I’m the sick fuck, not you.”

“Don’t say that! You’re not sick!” she said sharply. She blinked and gave a self-depreciating snort. “Some pain can’t be healed by grief. Listen, Paden, everybody has an issue or two to deal with. Look at me. I get hysterical at the sight of blood.”

“From the accident?”

“I was in that wreck, the one that killed my mother and father, sister and brother.” A sarcastic little laugh escaped her throat. “You know what I got? A superficial cut on my knee. My brother’s blood dripped into my mouth, and I had a scrape. So issues? Yeah, I have a few myself.”

They lapsed into silence, not sure what to say next.

“Wait a minute,” she finally said. “I wasn’t your first, was I?”

He shook his head. “The meds helped for a while, long enough for me to go to college. But no matter what relationship I had, I could never climax without cutting myself. The meds helped control the monster in my head, but it could never control the need to hurt myself.”

She shivered, not in the least bit cold. He talked so casually about his problem, about the fact that he deliberately hurt himself, and that was something she couldn’t fully comprehend.

“Thea,” he finally said. “I care about you. I really…care about you.”

She had a feeling that wasn’t what he wanted to say at all. But she was too much of a coward to press him about it. She caressed his cheek, and he closed his eyes as if savoring her touch.

“I wish I could help you,” she whispered. “I wish I could go back in time and prevent that man from hurting you.”

His eyes opened, his jaw hardened and his shoulders stiffened. Without another word, he turned and left the office, leaving her behind.

Paden didn’t leave her mind all night, though she hid it well as she laughed and danced with various men, and even once with Miki. She felt proud that not one person could tell how torn she was inside as Paden’s words kept replaying through her mind.

Caleb took her home at midnight, and she gave him a hug and kiss on the cheek. He thanked her for not only being his date, but for having the courage to tell him that it was okay for Claire to always be somewhere in his heart.

Thea undressed and folded up her pretty blue dress, burying it back in the bottom of her luggage. The shoes she carefully placed on the dresser. She performed her nightly ablutions and slipped on her flannel pajamas, but as she pulled the blankets up to her chin and closed her eyes, she still couldn’t get Paden out of her mind.

She kept seeing a little boy, chained, having a depraved man doing horrible things in front of him. She then pictured herself taking Paden’s place. What would she have done? What horrendous nightmare would she have had to live through the rest of her life?

She had lost her family in an accident, and it almost destroyed her through grief and depression, but Paden…he lost even his sanity. Thea sat up in bed as a thought suddenly popped into her head.

She rose, slipped on a robe, and went into Miki’s study, turning on the computer. It took only a moment to find what she was looking for, the website on Paden’s family’s company. The webpages described the proud heritage of Navires Yachts in detail and displayed photos of their most luxurious boats. Surprisingly, it was harder to find information about his kidnapping. She only found a few websites, mostly forensic and crime sites, and of course on Wikipedia which reported the name of the man who had taken him. Reading the cold hard facts of what a ten-year-old little boy had gone through was even more abhorrent than hearing about them.